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Cheney Changes From
Clark Kent to Superpredator

D ick Cheney must be a shrewder choice as George W. Bush's running mate than even most Republicans hope. How else to explain the hysterical assault on him by Democrats?

Talk about metamorphosis. The former defense secretary has gone from Beltway statesman to the Wyoming cousin of the Unabomber in less than 24 hours.

Before his selection, Mr. Cheney was every Democrat's favorite Republican. Al Gore said so himself. "He is a good guy. I like him a lot, and he is well liked by his colleagues," the vice president said back when he was a mere senator in 1989.

George Mitchell, now a possible Gore running mate, also declared that year that Mr. Cheney had "served with distinction" in Congress. And even former Gore campaign boss Tony Coelho, normally a hyperpartisan, called Mr. Cheney's nomination as defense secretary "a smart move on the part of the president but a great move on behalf of the country."

These heart-warming encomia all came after Mr. Cheney had compiled the voting record in Congress that Democrats are suddenly describing as lunatic fringe. "He is probably as far right as anybody in the Republican Party today," declared Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle this week.

Auditioning for veep himself, Massachusetts liberal John Kerry raised the tone of national discourse with, "I don't know how you vote not to free Nelson Mandela from prison. I don't know how you vote against Superfund and the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act and against even banning terrorist guns from coming into this country."

Politics can make smart people look foolish. So a friend should tell Mr. Kerry how silly he sounds goading soccer moms into believing that the defense secretary who prosecuted a war against Saddam Hussein is soft on terrorism.

Mr. Gore delegated his own attacks to Jesse Jackson, who all but blew a gasket. Standing next to the veep at a Rainbow Coalition event, the political reverend compared Mr. Cheney to Jesse Helms, played the Mandela card to imply he was antiblack, and added that "Dick Cheney has an image that is palatable. But Jesus warned us to beware wolves in sheeps' clothing." Bush-Cheney, the Silent Predator ticket!

Why this over-the-top assault? The answer isn't the spin that Democrats are somehow "relieved" by the Cheney choice. It's because they're worried. Trailing in the polls, they keep waiting for Mr. Bush to make a mistake, and the veep choice always has blunder potential.

But Mr. Bush keeps disappointing them. Democrats know Mr. Cheney is someone with appeal to both the middle and the right. He reinforces Mr. Bush's largest current advantage, which is his lead over Mr. Gore in enthusiasm among base voters. Mr. Bush is winning 90%-plus support among Republicans, while the veep gets only 80%-plus among Democrats. (Bob Dole won only 81% of Republicans in 1996.)

In a close, low-turnout election, as this year's may be, this edge can be decisive. Richard Nixon certainly thought so. He blamed his narrow loss in 1960 in part on his failure to motivate his base, especially with the running-mate choice of liberal Henry Cabot Lodge. Nixon didn't make the same mistake in 1968. (Spiro Agnew's other problems showed up later.)

Democrats are also frustrated that Mr. Bush doesn't scare anyone the way Newt Gingrich did in 1996. It's hard to drive Democrats to the barricades against an opponent who talks about "compassion" and "optimism" and who speaks to the NAACP.

Next week's GOP convention is going to be so positive it could have been scripted by Norman Vincent Peale. And the Cheney selection, so popular on the right, actually frees Mr. Bush to reach out even more to swing voters in the fall.

Which is why Mr. Gore has to make mild-mannered Dick Cheney sound like a Rocky Mountain militiaman. Before it's over, look for Mr. Cheney's wife, Lynne, to emerge as a devil-figure too. She stood up to political correctness at the National Endowment for the Humanities, which will mobilize the Harvard faculty vote, if no one else.

An anonymous Gore operative gave the game away when he told Reuters this week that "Cheney's record against gun control, abortion rights and the environment is already energizing core Democratic groups." Message: The only thing Democrats have to fear is the lack of fear itself.

Will it work? I doubt it. Mr. Cheney is only the running mate, after all, and his manner is so serene he doesn't scare anyone but the fiercest partisans. Mr. Bush's advisors also believe such ideological attacks only turn off swing voters in these contented times.

Importantly, the Bush camp didn't blink the way so many other Republicans have when the first assaults hit. Mr. Cheney said he might "tweak" his voting record a bit in hindsight but that overall he was proud of it. As for Mr. Bush, he said of his running mate, "This is a conservative man. So am I."

How refreshing. When Al Gore was confronted by his earlier pro-life, pro-gun votes in Congress, he first denied he'd changed his mind and only last week dismissed an abortion vote as merely "procedural." At least Dick Cheney tells the truth.